Canon EOS 650D: The first sample images

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We've already had a hands-on with the Canon EOS 650D in Warsaw, Poland, at this year's UEFA Euro 2012 Championships. We've got a good idea how the camera performs, but many current D-series owners will want to know about image quality: is it any better than its predecessor?

The 650D has an 18-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor that is, at least at its core, the same as that found in its 600D predecessor. So far, so similar.

But the addition of Canon's DIGIC 5 processor means images are handled differently.

In the gallery below are images in their original compositional form and also at 1000-pixel crops at 100 per cent to offer a true representation of what the JPEG files are like straight from the camera.

Our first thoughts are that images aren't distinctly different from their 600D counterparts, at least upon first inspection, but higher up the ISO scale the noise-reduction processing has an edge over the previous model.

Images are rather impressive. Look at the fine detail and rich blacks at ISO 100 and even shots higher up the ISO range hold plenty of detail.

We'll be testing the EOS 650D to exhaustion over the coming week in order to bring you our full and final review. For now, glance through our gallery and see what you think for yourself.

Will you be buying or upgrading? Or are you disappointed that Canon hasn't followed in Nikon and Sony's footsteps and produced a super-high resolution sensor for its consumers? Comment in the box below...